Course Requirements:
Discussion questions & class participation 20%
Class Presentation 20%
Short essays (2) 20%
Final project 40%
To pass the course, you must complete each requirement, and comply with
the attendance requirements outlined in the general
course policies.
All assignments are graded holistically according to the terms of
my grading rubric.
Discussion
questions & class participation:
Discussion
questions will be posted for each reading on a WebBoard. You should use
these questions as prereading guides, and you should respond to the ones
that interest/intrigue/confuse you. This 20% of your grade will be
determined by your level of perceived engagement in the ideas of the
course.
Class
Presentation:
This presentation is an
opportunity for you to try relating some of the theoretical concepts we
discuss to a particular children's text. You are to prepare a
twenty-minute presentation that clearly articulates your concept as it
relates to the text you have chosen, and then the class will have time to
respond/challenge/extend your idea. You might think of this as a teaching
session--you are teaching a particular idea or concept to undergraduates
(or whatever grade you teach), making it accessible through a textual
example. Grade will be based mostly on the clarity with which you present
your ideas.
Short essays (2):
You
have two short essays to write, due whenever is most convenient for you.
The first is a book review of a book chosen from a list I will
provide.
Academic book reviews include a summary of the argument and chapters, and
an assessment of the book's strengths, weaknesses, and value to the
profession. Emphasis in this class should be on the author's engagement
and proficiency with theory. They are typically less than 2000 words, but
we're flexible.
The second essay is a
rhetorical analysis of an article that has won the ChLA Article Award. The
list appears here.
Final Project:
Your
final project should be personally meaningful and theoretically informed.
Please meet with me sometime in February to discuss your plans.
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